


The One You Earn

by autumndynasty



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fairy Tales, Hopeful Ending, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumndynasty/pseuds/autumndynasty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best endings are the ones your earn and Fakir is determined to earn theirs, no matter what form it may take. A story of having your cake and trying to eat it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One You Earn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opheliahyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliahyde/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, opheliahyde! I was so happy reading your request - we love so many similar things about the series that I was excited to start writing! That said, I really hope you enjoy this fic as much as I did writing - that's the important thing!

Make no mistake, this is no fairytale. There will be a prince and there will be a princess, animals will communicate with humans and wondrous magic will play its part. But none of this is truly the point anymore.

-

The problem with literature is that anything can happen. And the problem with fairytales, Fakir thinks, is that they do. Things that shouldn’t happen do so all the time and everybody takes it for granted.

Now that Drosselmeyer’s curse is broken, the fairytale of Princess Tutu and the Prince With No Heart has come to an end. No more wishes will be granted; the magic has dried up.

This is one fate they can’t defy.

_(May those who accept their fate be granted happiness. May those who defy their fate be granted glory.)_

-

Fakir spends most of his waking hours on the wharf. He’s still dreadful at fishing, never catching a single thing. Ahiru brought him a crab once, reluctantly. Fakir didn’t have the heart to kill it though; he just tossed it back in the water and smiled.

Fakir stays by the water because it’s the place Ahiru feels most comfortable. She’s happy enough indoors with him, especially on cold nights when the wind and rain howl outside. Fakir lights a fire on those nights and they huddle together in a comfy old chair to read a book. But in the summer, she’s happiest outside, splashing in the water no more gracefully than she stumbles about on land.

By the lake, he just writes away and not about anything much in particular. One day it’s a story about a man sailing a ship in an unexplored sea, another day it’s about what his parents may have been like as children. Nothing lasts more than a few pages but every sheet is kept.

He can’t bring himself to write about ducks.

-

‘This is who I am, Fakir. Who I’ve always been and I’m happy to be me.’

-

“You know why Fakir keeps writing, don’t you?” Rue asks.

Ahiru nods, then tilts her head to the side.

“No, I know you’re happy just to be with us all but... But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to talk to us properly again? To dance and to see your other friends?”

Ahiru quacks softly, turning away and sitting on the grass.

Rue shuffles forward and reaches out a hesitant hand. “I love your dancing, Ahiru. Not just as Princess Tutu but your own. As yourself.” She picks Ahiru up and turns her round. “It describes your wonderful depth of heart perfectly.” Rue beams and the little duck almost seems to blush.

Rue jumps up and laughs, hands outstretched. “Come on, Ahiru. Will you dance with me a while?”

When Seigfried and Fakir come looking in the fading sunlight, they find the pair sound asleep in a circle of trampled grass.

-

_What if it doesn’t work this time? This is, after all, no fairytale. We should be happy. We should be happy. And trying to defy your fate may bring you glory but it doesn’t bring you happiness, does it?_

_Does it?_

-

Ahiru pulls the covers up to Fakir’s chin. He mumbles something incoherently in thanks.

Ahiru quacks loudly in his ear and he winces as it sends a shooting pain across his skull. Ahiru quacks again softly, apologetically. Fakir frees an ink-stained hand from his blankets to pat her on the head.

He sneezes. The whole bed shakes. Ahiru curls up in the crook of his neck and that’s the last he remembers.

-

It’s the final straw, apparently.

Ahiru flys up and grabs the pen, knocking inkwells and sheets flying in the process. Fakir snatches at the pen but Ahiru flaps up to the rafters and, settling in, shakes her head.

“Ahiru, what do you think you’re doing?” Fakir shouts. Ahiru looks away, beak in the air and pen still clutched tight.

“I have more you know, idiot,” Fakir says. At the following stony silence, Fakir sighs and flops back onto his desk chair. “But I am getting on with it. I’ve finally started trying to write our happy ending,” he says.

At that, Ahiru drops the pen to begin squawking, flapping her wings in obvious anger.

“So that’s it? I’m doing this for you as much as for me, you ungrateful... Look,” Fakir takes a deep breath, “I wish you were human again. So you’ll have a longer life. So we’ll share a life properly. Don’t you want that too?”

Ahiru seems to calm a little and, after a moment, flaps down to sit at his feet.

“Quack,” she says.

“That simple, huh?” Fakir says, a small smile emerging on his face. “But you were a girl when I first met you. I didn’t mean Princess Tutu, the untouchably beautiful and compassionate Prima Ballerina, I meant the girl I got to know and lo-,“ he coughs, feeling himself go red. “Uh... love. The girl who quacks and trips over her own feet and is always late to class and is always there for her friends. Who always encouraged me and stayed even when I didn’t want her to.”

It feels very awkward for Fakir to say and, it seems, for Ahiru to hear. She looks up at him and Fakir knows why she’s still not happy.

“I know you’re a duck, Ahiru. But you can be more than one thing. You’re a duck and you’re a girl, just as you’re also Princess Tutu. I was a knight and now I’m a writer but I’ll always have been a knight and always can be agai...” Fakir trails off.

He glances back at his desk.

“Ahiru, can I –?“ he asks but Ahiru interrupts him. She quacks loudly, waddles over the fallen pen and brings it back.

“Thank you, little duck,” he whispers.

-

It’s not a perfect solution but it’s the best Fakir can manage with his limited skills.

And outside of fairytales, complicated or at least bittersweet endings have always been easier to reach than happy ones.

He writes them a Happier Ending of their own.

This story, like Princess Tutu in the Prince and the Raven, is about a duck who is fated to change forms. The duck lives by a beautiful lake and by the light of the full moon, is cursed to become the tragic Princess Tutu, fated to be separated from her love and to travel far from home and spreading her graceful wings in the service of troubled, often thankless souls. And by the relative darkness of the waxing and waning moons, she becomes a normal human girl, powerless and graceless but loved well by those she loves in turn.

Maybe one day, Fakir will write another ending. Or perhaps a sequel that brings more development and more control over the changes each night. But for now, this is enough for them both.

-

_(Who says you can’t have both?)_

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Swan Princess - it's one of my favourite fairytales. And how could I not expound on it a little further than Princess Tutu itself when it's so easily twisted into a servicable solution for happyish ending?
> 
> I thought about making Ahiru fully human again (or even just staying as a duck forever, damn the human-love-story!) but upon sitting down to write, I realised it just didn't feel right either way. A major theme of the series is not only defying fate to make your life what you want it to be but also accepting who you are and being happy in yourself. Ahiru was obviously pretty happy as a duck but she was happy in her girl form too. It just felt right, okay? <3
> 
> Anyway, Happy Yuletide one and all!


End file.
